Project Skyway is only 12 months old, a fact we’re proud of considering how much we’ve done. It’s been a torrid pace since inception. After all, Cem and I are both entrepreneurs. We don’t wait around for much.
In the last 12 months we’ve learned a lot, built a lot, partied a lot, and are excited to help hundreds more entrepreneurs launch and grow better. As long as they don’t claw-back employee stock options, at least.
Why we do this? We do this all in an effort to create startup density.
You see, Silicon Valley gets much love, and deservedly so, because they’ve achieved an unparalleled level of startup density. On the transit. In the coffee shop. At the Verizon store. Everyone around you is in tech or startups or, very likely, both. That’s density for you. It’s what gives the Valley an overwhelming sense of “startup community”. And it’s what we hope to help build with many more cycles of startups to come, our next being in February 2012.
But we at Project Skyway didn’t make this first cycle happen by ourselves.
We had help. A lot. In fact, it took an ecosystem.
That’s why, even though this post may not make an entertaining read, I still want to carve out several paragraphs to personally thank all of the folks inside of this ecosystem that actually etched out time from their busy lives, companies, firms, consultancies, families, and overflowing inboxes to add value to what we’ve done and continue to do, which is to build an environment rich with resources that helps ambitious tech entrepreneurs kick ass.
Launch
Props go out to several individuals who saw the vision, loved the vision, and also contributed heavily to the vision and executed way back in the early days when were were merely talking about PS.
Ben Damman, Erika Lyremark, Sarah Young, Darren Cox, Jeffrey Miller, Paul Taylor, Lois Josephson, Judy Carter, and Curt Prins. These folks dedicated serious time even though they all run companies, and, along with hundreds of others that contributed to our vision through our open meetings, helped Cem and I shape what Project Skyway is quickly becoming. We call them PS Initiators.
Bootcamp
For those of you that don’t know, getting into Project Skyway is no easy process. But we make that 2-step process as fun as we can as well as educational for the companies that are invited.
One of the educational parts of our round 2 bootcamp is the Mentor-Go-Round in which entrepreneurs move from table to table spending 20 minutes with startup experts, each table representing a different topic. Entrepreneurs can ask our “gurus” any question they want about legal, technology, partnerships, and other good-to-know things.
Somehow, on a Saturday, we were able to get the best of the best to come and dispense valuable insights to entrepreneurs for several hours. Massive thanks to:
Kevin Spreng, Doug Ramler, Bjorn Stansvik, Aaron Kardell, Rob Weber, Kim Garretson, Steve Borsch, Curt Prins, Paul “MN Headhunter” DeBettignies, Ben Edwards, Chris Carlson, Shane Erickson, and Bill McGuigan.
Every single one of these came to interact with the 25 startups and 51 co-founders to be a resource, connector, and friend.
First Cycle
We have a great list of mentors (we call them Skyway Captains). 31 folks that have all started or been part of the founding team of tech companies. Amongst that mentor list are 15 exits and 13 companies that raised over a mil. Doers, not talkers.
What’s cool is that we’re adding yet more Captains to our next cycle. Stay tuned for word on that shortly.
Captains add value in all types of ways. They come to our weekly dinners, they come in to riff to the group and meet one-on-one with Skywalkers. They’re available via email and Skype and endless coffees for our entrepreneurs. Every single mentor volunteers (with no equity or compensation) for one sole reason: To help a younger version of them. We would be nothing without them.
Separately, speakers (what we call Gurus) come and share their expertise on topics that they are rockstars. Special thanks to Rick Gardiner, Jeff Sauer, Ernest Grumbles, Michael Cohen, and Sam Richter. Also thanks to active investors John Lilly, John Alexander, Bill McGuigan, Joy Lindsay, Michael Gorman, Mark Marlow, Rob Weber, Kenan Aksoz, Anton Medved, for spending precious time during the program teaching the ways of the game and tearing apart pitches.
Chris Carlson, aptly called “The Pitch Doctor”, made a lasting impression on all of our Skywalkers and made for an impressive Demo Day with over 50 investors, Captains and supporters there to watch and support the Skywalkers. Our CEOs probably put a combined 500 hours into their presentations. Chris helped made everybody better story tellers.
I had a super helpful team that allowed us to get things done. Chris Murphy, our PR and marketing geek who worked with the companies and helped things move along communications-wise internally. My two Project Mavericks (known in more boring circles as “interns”), Ryan Reilly and Solome Tibebu absolutely tore it up. You can try to hire them but you wouldn’t be able to afford them. I feel honored to have worked with both of them.
Last but not least, our amazing startup attorney, Kevin Spreng. He’s the one startup attorney I’ve found I can talk to no differently than I do my tech CEO friends. Awesome.
The word “community” is overused to the point of being meaningless. That’s why you hear the word “ecosystem” out of us constantly. Community just means people. Ecosystem means people that are doing. That’s also why we partnered with CoCo and the awesome team that has built a place of action. If you want to be where the action is, the Brain Exchange is where the doers live.
We love our ecosystem, look forward to a lot more fun, and hope that every startup, every entrepreneur, and every event that we play a role in bringing to life makes the entire platform more robust for everyone.
All in the interest in building startup density.